MLBPipeline.com though has a fully updated Nats system top 30, including the 2017 draft prospects, and the list is kind of telling. Lets dive into it, looking at some of the new guys, the guys who are off the list, the movers and the fallers.

The Top 4 hasn’t changed: Victor Robles, Juan Soto, Erick Fedde and Carter Kieboom remain our top 4 prospects, as they have been ever since we parted ways with Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo Lopez (more on them later). Now, whether this will still be the case in a week’s time, when the trade deadline has passed, remains to be seen. Robles remains the #1 guy, the guy who I think the team is looking at to have a “passing of the torch” moment once Bryce Harper departs town, and remains an incredible bargain in terms of bonus-dollars-versus-prospect status ($225k bonus in 2014). Soto has streaked up the ranks: prior to the beginning of the 2016 season he wasn’t even in the top 30 lists; now he’s pushing Robles at the top.

Six of our Top 30 are 2017 draftees: This was the point that surprised me, looking at the list. MLB’s #5, 6, 16, 19, 22 and 24th ranked players have played for about a month now in our low minors. #5 and #6 (the ones that are somewhat meaningful) are of course our top two drafted arms Seth Romero and Wil Crowe. The reason there’s so much room for adding new draftees though is…

We’ve lost a TON of prospects in the last 12 months: Just looking at my master list, here’s the departures from prospect lists lately:

Graduated: Grace, Glover, Cole, Goodwin this year, Turner last year

Traded: Neuse, Luzardo this year, Giolito, Lopez, Dunning, Hearn, Schrock, Avila last year or last off-season. Dunning in particular was in our system so shortly that he never made it to a ranking list.

That’s 13 guys, some of whom were pretty prominently ranked and all of whom were mentioned here or there on various lists.

Now, how about the guys that are left? Here’s some guys who are really shooting up, rankings wise (and yes, some of their rise is due to the surgical removal of so many guys above them … nonetheless, these guys have all played well):

Juan Soto: as mentioned above; MLB has him #2 now. A year ago he was in the 15-17 range, and prior to 2016 season he was a nobody, outside the top 30.

Yasel Antuna: our big-money 2016 IFA signing is not disappointing; he had no playing time this time last year and was ranked in the 19-25 range just based on his bonus. Now? He’s hitting .300 as a 17-yr old in the GCL with nearly a .40o OBP (as of this writing).

Daniel Johnson: recently promoted and it was well earned: Johnson hit 17 homers in the first half in Hagerstown (not an easy place to hit for power), made the all-star team, and got promoted. MLB.com has him 10th right now; they had him #29th in April.

Blake Perkins: It looks like he’s finally getting the hang of switch hitting, and his OPS in Low-A is 200 points higher than it was last year. He has generally been in the 16-20 range of prospects; now he’s at #11.

McKenzie Mills: the lefty Low-A starter has exploded this year; he sits at 12-2 with more than a K/inning for Hagerstown, made the All-Star team and seems ready for a promotion. MLB has him at #18 in our system; he’s never even been an honorable mention before.

Raudy Read: he’s stepped it up a bit, hitting for some power and holding his slash line to respectable levels as a 23-yr old in AA (and on the 40-man roster).

Taylor Gushue: also a 23-yr old catcher, with an OPS above .820 one level below Read in High-A. Never before ranked (at least for us), MLB.com has him 25th now. I could see these two catchers pushing each other and pushing the likes of Severino and Lobaton off the 40-man.

And here’s some guys whose prospect value has taken a nosedive this year:

Pedro Severino: speaking of catcher depth; Severino has seen his stats take a nose dive as he repeats AAA; his 1.048 OPS figure for the Nats last September seems like a mirage. He’s still on the 40-man, and his reputation is more about his defense than his offense, but that’s still just a backup catcher ceiling.

Drew Ward: Year after year, Ward’s prospect value drops. He used to be top 10; now he’s fallen to the 20-range. He’s repeating AA and hitting just .224; he’ll be rule-5 eligible this coming off-season but I can’t see saving him with a roster spot right now. If he doesn’t turn it around, he’ll end up in org-guy territory soon.

Austin Voth: perhaps the most curious of our falling prospects. He was in the 6-7 range just a year and a half ago, then finished a full strong season in AAA. 2017? He’s struggled, gotten demoted, and struggled further.

Jakson Reetz: he’s now pushed down to 26th, after routinely hanging out in the 10-15 range after being such a high draft pick. He’s basically been socially promoted by virtue of his bonus figure, having never hit above .230 outside of complex ball. He’s now backing up a guy in Gushue who’s 2 years older, but also has an OPS that’s 200 points better.

Anderson Franco: what happened here? He was solid in rookie ball … and barely at the mendoza line in full season ball. Another guy routinely given top 10 rankings early on; he’s now just hanging on ranked #27 by MLB.

Osvaldo Abreu: he’s moved up a level a year, now playing in AA, but his numbers have had corresponding declines with each promotion. He wasn’t ever considered a major prospect, but now he’s barely considered a minor one.

Telmito Agustin: he couldn’t hack it in High-A and was demoted back to Low-A this year. He’s only 20, so he has time, but he’s basically out of the prospect discussions for now.

Nick Banks & Rhett Wisemann: both big-time college program upper-end draft picks, both scuffling professionally. Neither now ranked by MLB whereas both had cracks at the top 10 of our prospect lists at some point.

Joan Baez: you can’t teach velocity right? Well for Potomac this year Baez had more walks than Ks … and more walks than innings pitched. He’s now a 22-yr old in GCL beating up on a bunch of kids, hoping to get his mojo back.

Matt Skole: he’s still a “prospect” remember? He’s 27, hitting .235 in AAA, and has yet to be called up even though the team is so short on hitters that they called up Severino this past week. I put Skole in here just to see if MartyC is still reading.

And now for some predictions related to our prospects:

Fedde is getting called up and soon, and will exhaust his rookie eligibility before the season is over. The team can’t let Edwin Jackson post 5+ ERAs like he’s been doing for the last few seasons.

Robles, Soto, Kieboom stay put to keep our top 4 in tact at the trade deadline.

I can see the team cashing in some lesser prospects in trade though, perhaps guys ranked in the 8-15 range. Selling high on Daniel Johnson perhaps, or flipping some C depth from Severino, Read, Gushue, Kieboom.

#1 prospect next year: still Robles; he’s not debuting until at least the super-2 deadline next year.

# prospect once Robles graduates: It’ll be Soto. For reasons explained in the next bullet point…

How quickly will Romero get to the Majors? Pretty quickly. I could see him ending next year in AA, then pushing for a spot in the 2019 staff. He won’t be in the minors long enough to get ranked above Soto. That is unless he turns out to continue his knuckle-headedness… at which point we’ll all write many comments about how we “told you so” for drafting him.

Did I miss anyone?

PS: fun trivia; there have only been eleven (11) different players to hold the title as “#1 Washington Nationals prospect” since Nov 2004. I’ll bet you can’t name them all.

Now that we’re basically through Prospect Ranking season, and now that the four full season rosters have been announced, here’s a fun little look at where all our “top” prospects are assigned to start out 2017. By “Top prospects” I basically mean anyone who has gotten more recent prospect rankings (so for example, Taylor Hill in Syracuse is not listed). Even an “honorable mention” in Sickel’s lists, which go nearly 40 deep. I have it organized not by general ranking, but by the level.

Also, Here’s a link to every Nats prospect ranking list I know of dating to 2004 along with their respective starting locations going back 3 years (the below table only has this year’s and last for comparison purposes).

Last Name

First Name

Position

2017 Starting Level

2016 Starting Level

Glover

Koda

RHP (reliever)

MLB

High A

Marmolejos

Jose

1B

MLB D/L

High A

Cole

A.J.

RHP

AAA

AAA

Voth

Austin

RHP

AAA

AAA

Severino

Pedro

C

AAA

AAA

Bautista

Rafael

OF (CF)

AAA

AA

Goodwin

Brian

OF (CF)

AAA

AAA

Skole

Matt

1B/3B

AAA

AAA

Fedde

Erick

RHP

AA

High A

Stevenson

Andrew

OF (CF)

AA

High A

Ward

Drew

3B

AA

High A

Abreu

Osvaldo

SS

AA

High A

Read

Raudy

C

AA

High A

Williams

Austen

RHP

AA

AA

Johansen

Jake

RHP (reliever)

AA

High A

Simms

John

RHP

AA

AA

Cordero

Jimmy

RHP (reliever)

AA

AA

Self

Derek

RHP (reliever)

AA

High A

Perez

Stephen

SS

AA

AA

Kieboom

Spencer

C

AA

AA

Robles

Victor

OF (CF)

High-A

Low A

Gutierrez

Kelvin

3B

High-A

Low A

Baez

Joan

RHP (Starter)

High-A

Low A

Wiseman

Rhett

OF (corner)

High-A

Low A

Agustin

Telmito

OF

High-A

Low A

Lora

Edwin

SS

High-A

Low A

Crownover

Matthew

LHP (Starter

High-A

Low A

Sagdal

Ian

Util

High-A

Low A

Davidson

Austin

Inf

High-A

High A

Reyes

Luis

RHP

High-A

High A

Rodriguez

Jefry

RHP

High-A

Low A

Bacus

Dakoda

RHP (reliever)

High-A

AA

Rivera Jr.

Mariano

RHP (reliever)

High-A

Low A

Soto

Juan

OF (corner)

Low-A

GCL

Kieboom

Carter

SS

Low-A

GCL

Neuse

Sheldon

3B

Low-A

Short A

Franco

Anderson

3B

Low-A

GCL

Perkins

Blake

OF (CF)

Low-A

Short A

Reetz

Jakson

C

Low-A

Low A

Watson

Tyler

LHP

Low-A

Short A

Banks

Nick

OF (Corner)

Low-A

Short A

Johnson

Daniel

OF (Corner)

Low-A

Short A

Noll

Jake

2B

Low-A

GCL

Barrera

Tres

C

Low-A

Short A

Garcia

Luis

SS

XST

DSL

Luzardo

Jesus

LHP (Starter

XST

XST

Antuna

Yasel

SS

XST

DSL

Upshaw

Armond

OF (CF)

XST

GCL

Lee

Andrew

LHP (reliever)

XST

Low A

Pimentel

Davinson

C

XST

GCL

Fuentes

Steven

RHP

XST

Short A

Dickey

Robbie

RHP

XST

Low A

Mota

Israel

OF

XST

GCL

Gunter

Cody

3B (now a RPH)

XST

Low A

Ballou

Isaac

OF (Corner)

XST

AA

Benincasa

Robert

RHP (reliever)

XST

AA

Sanchez

Jose

?

DSL?

DSL

Thoughts by Level:

MLB: Koda Glover‘s amazing 2016 rise from High-A to the majors is well documented. Now it looks like he may get closing chances sooner than later. For procedural reasons Jose Marmolejos has to be on the major league D/L, but you’d have to think he goes to AA when he’s off of it. His injury, in case you were wondering, is a “Left Forearm Strain” and he should be eligible to come off the 60-day D/L on or about April 24th.

AAA: Of the 6 “prospects” in AAA … 5 of them were there last year. Only Rafael Bautista is making “progress” into the upper-most level of our minors. All six are on the 40-man and all 6 should get call-ups at some point this year (even if its 9/1 for someone like Bautista). We’ve talked these guys to death really; no real surprises on this list.

AA: Lots of guys on the AA roster who have gotten mentions in the past. About half of them are Nats draftees making expected progress from High-A -> AA (Fedde, Stevenson, Ward, Abreu, Read). There’s 5 guys who are seemingly stalled at AA for the moment: Williams, Simms, Cordero, Perez and Kieboom all started last year at AA. And then there’s the two oddities in terms of assignments: Johansen (as previously discussed) and Self (who is now in AA for the fourth season).

High-A: 10 of the 13 guys here are making year-over-year expected progress from Low-A. Two more (Davidson and Reyes) are repeating the level, and then there’s Bacus, who started last year in AA and seems to be moving backwards.

Low-A: 6 guys making expected Short->Low-A jumps, another 4 making the more impressive GCL->Low-A jump. Only Reetz languishing here, repeating Low-A and looking more and more like a draft disappointment. And its reflected in his system rankings; upon his drafting he was back of the top 10 … now he’s 18-20 range, if ranked at all.

XST: contains the expected mix of guys coming off injury and youngsters who were in either the GCL or the DSL last year and were not really ever candidates for Hagerstown. Some of these guys likely get assigned to full-season squads as injuries occur, others will slot into short-season squads in a couple of months. Biggest names here are Luis Garcia, Jesus Luzardo, Yasel Antuna, and Jose Sanchez (who might still be in the DSL as a 2016 IFA signee).

On Thursday 6/30/16, the big domino in our 2016 draft class Dane Dunningfinally signed, which brought the Nats draft dollar shell game into more acute focus.

For those unfamiliar, here’s how the MLB draft now works with the new CBA-driven draft slotting and bonus system: Every pick in the first 10 rounds is assigned a slot figure (here’s the 2016 slot figures directly pick by pick). But you don’t have to spend all those dollars on each of those individual picks; if you “save” $100 by signing your (say) 4th rounder for $100 less than the slot value, that gives you $100 “extra” dollars to spend on someone else. Any pick made above the 10th round can be paid up to $100,000 without having to count against the total bonus figure, which is important because if you give a 11th rounder $500k, that’s $400k that has to be counted against your top 10 budget.

So, the more important figure to keep in mind is this: $7,635,500. That’s the sum of all the slot values of the 11 picks in the first 10 rounds that the Nats had this year. An even more important figure is this: $8,017,275: that is precisely 5% above the $7.6M number, which is the “buffer” that MLB gives teams so as to go above their total slot values (along with a dollar-for-dollar tax penalty) without being penalized with lost future draft picks.

So, that being said, upon the Dunning signing, the Nats (by my calculations) had spent exactly $8,095,000 in bonus money, or $22,275 less than their upper end figure before getting penalized.

Here’s a list of those signees with dollar figures:

Round

Overall

Name/Position

Bonus Amt

Slot Value

Savings off of Slot?

1-S

28

Carter Kieboom

2000000

2065900

65900

1-S

29

Dane Dunning

2000000

2034600

34600

2

58

Sheldon Neuse

900000

1107000

207000

3

94

Jesus Nuzardo

1400000

635800

-764200

4

124

Nick Banks

500000

473300

-26700

5

154

Daniel Johnson

325000

354300

29300

6

184

Tres Barrera

210000

265400

55400

7

214

Jacob Noll

190000

198900

8900

8

244

A.J. Bogucki

150000

177700

27700

9

274

Joey Harris

10000

166000

156000

10

304

Paul Panaccione

10000

156600

146600

11

334

Armand Upshaw

400000

100000

-300000

The team went way over slot to sign third rounder Jesus Nuzardo, paying him the equivalent of mid 2nd round money to buy him out of his Miami commitment and get him into the fold. That seems like good value; he was projecting as a 1st rounder out of HS earlier in the year before hurting his arm. The team went slightly over budget to get Nick Banks, a nominal amount in the end for a US collegiate National team guy who also projected as a first rounder at the beginning of the year. Lastly they dropped $400k ($300k over slot) on their 11th rounder Armand Upshaw, a move that has been somewhat questioned based on his Juco Stats (he did have a 4-year commitment to Missouri that had to be bought out). These two big over-slot deals means club basically ended up with an extra 2nd rounder and an extra 5th rounder. That’s pretty good value.

The team went under slot (as has now become the custom) with a number of its round 6-10 guys to save the money needed for these overslot deals: they got their 9th and 10th rounders for just $10k each (Joey Harris and Paul Panaccione); with all due respect to these two guys, don’t expect much out of them beyond this year. Surprisingly to me, they got 2nd rounder Sheldon Neuse to sign for more than $200k underslot; this was a guy who was named the Big 12 player of the year this year, was Louisville Slugger 2nd team all-american, was a semifinalist for the Golden Spikes award and was just give the 2016 “Brooks Wallace” award for best college shortstop. Basically, he had a great year this year and I like this pick.

The side effect of their spending thus far is this: there probably are no more deals to be made. Here’s a list of the rest of the draft class ( from round 12 to 40) with a quick yes/no flag as to whether they’re signed yet:

Round

Overall

Name/Position

Position

Col/HS

College or Cmtm

Signed?

12

364

Hayden Howard

LHP

Col Sr.

Texas Tech

Yes

13

394

Conner Simonetti

1B

Col Jr.

Kent State

Yes

14

424

Kyle Simonds

RHP

Col Sr.

Texas A&M

Yes

15

454

Ryan Williamson

LHP

Col Jr.

North Carolina State

Yes

16

484

Phil Morse

RHP

Col Sr.

Shenandoah (Va.)

Yes

17

514

Tyler Beckwith

SS

Col Sr.

Richmond

Yes

18

544

Ben Braymer

LHP

Col Jr.

Auburn

Yes

19

574

Jarrett Gonzales

C

HS

Grayson Junior College

20

604

Jake Barnett

LHP

Col Jr.

Lewis-Clark State (Idaho)

Yes

21

634

Jacob Howell

RHP

Col Jr.

Delta State (Miss.)

Yes

22

664

Sterling Sharp

RHP

Col Jr.

Drury (Mo.)

Yes

23

694

Michael Rishwain

RHP

Col Sr.

Westmont (Calif.)

Yes

24

724

Joseph Baltrip

RHP

J2

Wharton County (Texas) JC

Yes

25

754

Branden Boggetto

SS

Col Sr.

Southeast Missouri State

Yes

26

784

Jack Sundberg

OF

Col Sr.

Connecticut

Yes

27

814

Jeremy McDonald

LHP

Col Sr.

California Baptist

Yes

28

844

Jonny Reid

LHP

Col Jr.

Azusa Pacific (Calif.)

Yes

29

874

Sam Held

RHP

Col Sr.

Nevada

Yes

30

904

Tristan Clarke

OF

J2

Eastern Oklahoma State JC

31

934

C.J. Picerni

C

Col Sr.

New York

Yes

32

964

Garrett Gonzales

3B

HS

Incarnate Word

33

994

Ryan Wetzel

SS

HS

Pitt State

34

1024

Morgan Cooper

RHP

Col Jr.

Texas

35

1054

Tristan Bayless

LHP

HS

??

36

1084

Jordan McFarland

OF

HS

Arkansas

37

1114

Cory Voss

C

J2

McLennan (Texas) CC

38

1144

Noah Murdock

RHP

HS

UVA

39

1174

Matt Mervis

1B

HS

Duke

40

1204

Sean Cook

RHP

HS

Maryland walk-on?

So who is left unsigned at this point? It is a fair assumption that any HS player drafted in the 12-40 range is not going to sign at this point; there’s just no additional dollars to incentivize them and they’ve all got college commitments. So lets talk about the college players left on a case by case basis:

(Note; in-between the original writing of this post and the publication, both 12th rounder Hayden Howard and 15th rounder Ryan Williamson signed; the signing of Howard came as somewhat of a surprise to me because he still had some eligibility. Apologies if I forgot to update a spreadsheet or table somewhere).

30th rounder Tristan Clarke: twitter handle is https://twitter.com/TClarke_9 but its protected, so no hints as to his intentions. He’s at a Juco now, but has committed to attend “UNO” which I can only assume is the University of Nebraska-Omaha and not the University of New Orleans. It does not seem like he’s going to sign.

34th rounder Morgan Cooper: twitter handle is https://twitter.com/mojaycoop: he missed all of 2015 with TJ, was Texas’ mid-week starter in 2016 and put up mediocre numbers. He could end up with two more years of eligibility if I read his history correctly, so he makes sense to return to Texas, get into the weekend rotation and improve his draft stock.

37th rounder Cory Voss: no idea what his twitter handle is, nor if he’s signed with a 4-year program out of his current Juco. Tough one to find information on.

Of the HS draft picks:

19th rounder Jarrett Gonzales: I cannot find his twitter, nor much information; he’s apparently committed to Grayson Junior College, which would make him draft eligible again next year, so why not roll the dice and play a year of Juco to increase value?

32nd rounder Garrett Gonzales, the cousin of Jarrett and they’re both related to a Nats scout in the area. Committed to Incarnate Ward. Twitter handle https://twitter.com/gmoneyGarrett7 : this seems like a “favor draft pick” to an area scout who may not have gotten another guy drafted.

35th rounder Tristan Bayless, LHP out of a Texas HS. Can’t find twitter, can’t find his commitment, not in PerfectGame.org. An enigma.

36th rounder Jordan McFarland, an OF out of an Illinois HS committed to Arkansas. No Twitter, little hope of signing.

38-40th rounders: the Nats take three local kids Noah Murdock, Matt Mervis and Sean Cook. Murdock was the Virginia 3-A East Regional player of the year from Colonial Heights HS south of Richmond and is a UVA commit and has already announced he’s going to school. Mervis is from Georgetown Prep, was 2nd team all-Met in 2015 and in 2016 and is committed to Duke; he was one of the marquee Maryland Prep players in this class. So both of these were “good” picks. Sean Cook was a 2nd-team All-Met ins 2016 but doesn’t have a rich pedigree in the scouting circles (he has no Perfect Game profile), and has been quoted as wanting to “walk on” at Maryland. No offense to the kid, but this sounds like a “favor” draft pick as well to someone connected with the team. We’ll have more detail on these local-connected drafted kids after the 7/15/16 signing deadline, summarizing everyone with local connections who was drafted.

Summary: I’ll be shocked if any of the remaining un-signed guys signs, so it looks like the class is complete.

Draft Class Stats (SpringfieldFan’s Draft Tracker has all of this data plus its own summarized data too)

41 players drafted

30 signed, 11 unsigned

Breakdown of draftees: 10 high schoolers, 4 Juco players, 12 college seniors and 15 college juniors (counting Howard as a “college junior”)

Breakdown by State: 9 of the 41 drafted kids are from Texas. Another 3 from Oklahoma; this continues a trend we’ve seen where the Nats really, really focus on this SW area of the country. Other states with multiple players picked: Florida (4), California (3), and Virginia (3).

If you have any information on guys that I don’t please chime in with a comment.

One additional comment; as we’ve now seen, the Nats have been highly active in the 7/2 international market, blowing well past their allotted IFA bonus money to sign. According to Baseball America’s rankings, the Nats signed the #3 prospect in the IFA market this year in Dominican SS Luis Garcia, the #14 player in Dominican SS Yasel Antuna, the #30 player in Venezuelan OF Ricardo Mendez, and another Venezuelan C named Israel Pineda (you know, since they’ve had such great luck so far with Catchers from Venezuela). I don’t know anything about these players and neither does anyone else besides a handful of hard-core scouting pundits who actually travel to these countries to eyeball these players. Still, they’re mostly 16 yr olds; HS sophomores. It could be money down a rat hole, or they could strike gold. We won’t know for several years in any case. Its one of the reasons I stopped tracking the Dominican Summer League (and one of the reasons Luke Erickson stopped hyper-tracking the daily machinations of both the DSL and the GCL); call me when they get to the states in a couple of years and we’ll see how they’re doing.